Eventually, the sounds coming from outside the door had been quiet long enough for him to feel comfortable trying again. He edged up to the door and slowly cracked it open. Peering out from the slowly widening crack John saw the remnants of Antithesis activity.
Clothing racks knocked to the ground and various bits of merchandise scattered about the store. John slowly shuffled towards the front door, listening closely for any hint of Antithesis coming for a taste of magician. As he got closer to the front he didn’t hear anything so he peeked out into the wider hallway, what he saw stole his breath.
What was once a study in shopping efficiency was now a wasteland of shattered planters, thrown signage, and blood. So much blood, it coated the walls in splatters and pooled in some spots on the ground.
John stepped back into his store and fought to calm his roiling stomach. ‘Puking now would just ring the dinner bell for them,’ he thought. A couple minutes later he stepped back out, purposely not looking too closely at the new paint job the mall had received. Instead, he began picking his way down the hall towards the shelter.
‘Hopefully they’ll be able to let me in. I don’t exactly trust my chances at making it to the one three floors up.’
He had been walking for about 20 minutes before he saw a sign of life, unfortunately what he saw was not human. A Model Three was digging at a storage locker trying to find a way in. The only sound that the Three made was the scratching of claws on metal, not a peep came from it otherwise.
As John observed, trying to find a way to move past without alerting the beast, he saw something that made his heart stop. There was a small puddle of blood pooling from the locker, but what truly shook him to the core was the sight of a familiar synth rose lying just to the side.
‘Nonono, it could be anybody. I can’t be the only one to carry synth roses.’
The Model Three suddenly slammed a paw into the door with more force than before and there was a startled cry from the locker, sounding distinctly like a young kid. John swore quietly, he couldn’t just leave a kid in there. Plus, if it was the kid he feared it was, it would haunt him for a long time if he just left. He began looking around trying to find some way to survive the decidedly stupid idea of getting rid of the murderous alien.
His gaze settled on some chairs from a nearby coffee shop he could use to hopefully trip the alien up with. As he made his way carefully towards it he set his knife into his sleeve, he couldn’t exactly swing a chair with it in his hand, but he could use his sleight of hand skills to grab it quickly enough.
Positions close enough to grab the chair John enacted his plan. He grabbed his deck of cards and shuffled it briefly, more habit than plan. He then flicked a single card through the air and watched as time seemed to slow down. The card spun through the air before smacking into the back of the Model Threes head. It froze for a second before snapping its head around to look directly at him.
John froze when its murderous gaze settled on him, causing him to drop his cards for the first time in years. The Model Three was not impressed and immediately charged towards him. John scrambled to pick up the chair he had set aside and just barely got it up in time to catch the Three flying through the air with the legs of the chair.
The flying alien hit him like a truck and sent him flying backwards onto a table. He got back up and saw that the Three had managed to get its legs tangled in the chair. Before he could talk himself out of it John rushed forward and flicked his knife into his hand. He leapt onto the aliens back and began to stab down towards its face. He managed to get the knife into its head twice before it threw off both the chair and the meddlesome human riding it.
John rolled on the ground and got to his feet just as the Three focused back on him. There was some green blood leaking from a couple spots on its face but otherwise it seemed perfectly fine.
‘I won’t survive a head-on fight here. I need to distract it.’ A flash of inspiration hit John right as the Three began charging at him again. Reaching into his pocket he grabbed a small orb he rarely used due to the price. He threw it at the floor in front of the Three and dived to the side. He covered his eyes as the orb exploded in a bright flash of light and a bit of smoke. The Three stumbled to a stop and began shaking its head.
John rushed it while it was distracted and drove his knife towards its eyes. There was a squelching sound that preceded the Model Three stiffening before its body went slack, falling to the ground and taking John's knife with it.
John sat on his knees panting hard. There was a smell like cut grass emanating from the dead alien. He gathered his wits, and his knife, before making his way over to the storage locker. He was about halfway there when there was a sudden, all encompassing pain, in his head. Just as fast as it came, it left, leaving only the memory of the pain.
System Initialized!
“W-what?” He choked out, reeling slightly at the voice in his head.
“I, I’m a Samurai?” John was convinced he was hallucinating.
John’s eyes locked back onto the locker and he scrambled to get to it. He tried to open it but it was locked, luckily it seemed the Model Three had bent the door enough to expose the latch so he was able to pull out his knife and flip the latch open.
He carefully pulled the door open to reveal a small figure huddled in the floor of the locker. To his horror, John recognized the patterned dress of the young girl he gave a rose to earlier in the day, the same rose that lay in a small pool of what appeared to be her blood.
“Sylmora, is…is she still…” He couldn’t finish the sentence but luckily Sylmora understood.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
John, like most people, had a basic understanding of what it meant to be a Samurai. They had a hyper advanced alien AI that gave them access to advanced technology from an alien race known as the Protectors. Everything from a gun that shoots black holes to medical tech that could all but bring people back from the dead.
“Whatever I need to save her, get it.”
Class I Medical Utilities Unlocked!
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New Purchase: Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite
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New Purchase: Class I Hemo-Restore
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Two plain white numbered boxes appeared at Johns feet, cementing his new situation in his head. This wasn’t a hallucination, he truly was a Samurai.
John fell to his knees and grabbed the box labeled with a number one. Opening it he found an injector filled with a slowly shifting silvery substance. He reached over to the girl and injected it into the side of her chest, watching as the silvery liquid shot into her. He quickly grabbed the other box and pulled out a similar injector filled with red liquid that he injected into her leg.
John nodded, “Good idea. Any clue where we could go?”
He nodded as he reached in to carefully pick up the young girl. Standing back up he turned to the left and began walking. He stopped in front of a security kiosk and began looking for the door to get in. He finally spotted it hidden off to the side of the window, taking a closer look at it he noticed that it appeared to be slightly opened already.
Thanking his stroke of luck, he toed it open before carefully stepping inside, keeping an eye out for any danger. Luckily it didn’t seem like the Antithesis had managed to get inside. Quickly moving inside he closed the door and headed for the back area where he found what looked like a small break room with a couch. He laid the young girl on the couch and collapsed in a nearby chair.
“Will she survive?” he asked the air while rubbing his head.
John nodded tiredly before staring at the ceiling. “Why me? I’m a con-artist at best, and not even a good one at that.”
He sat forward and rubbed his face. “Can’t really argue with that logic I suppose. So, what’s next?”
John checked the map on his augs. “Looks like I’m about 10 minutes of walking from the shelter, but considering I have to be careful and probably carry the girl here it’s looking more like half an hour. I know I can buy new gear with points and I kill Antithesis to gain points, but is there anything else I need to know that might help out here?”
John sat up a bit at that. “So I could technically outfit myself with gear from a store here in the mall without much worry? That would definitely help with my lack of points.”
John leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful look on his face. “That makes sense. But what can I get? Even that one catalog took almost half my points.”
“Makes sense. So what options do I have?”
John grimaced. “We’ll keep that as a backup. I don’t particularly want to be that close to the plants.”
They fell into silence as they thought. John reached into his pocket for his deck of cards, only to remember he dropped it in the hallway. “Shit, I liked that deck too.”
“Yea, I usually shuffle a deck or spin a coin when I’m thinking. Helps focus my mind.” He sighed and sunk into his chair a bit.
“I’m pretty good, I think. I often throw cards around for my tricks. Not sure why you’re asking though, I don’t think the Antithesis are going to not eat me because of some card tricks,” he let out a dark chuckle at the thought of trying to perform tricks for a crowd of murderous plants.
That caught John's interest. “What is it?”
She paused for a moment before continuing,
John thought for a minute before responding, “Do they bend and act like normal cards? Flexibility is important for accuracy.”
John thought for a few moments while he watched the slow rise and fall of the young girl’s chest. “Let’s do it. Get the gloves as well, I’m kind of attached to my fingers. I’ll just have to make sure not to get injured too badly”
Class I Magician’s Deck Unlocked!
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New Purchase: Edgeguard Gloves
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At his feet appeared two new boxes, but these were not the plain white of before. These boxes were solid black with a card design taking up the top. John opened up one box to find a pair of gloves folded inside. He pulled them on and was shocked to realize they felt like he was wearing nothing at all.
After marveling at how well the gloves fit for a minute he opened the other box. Inside rested a card box with the same coloration as the box. He lifted the box out, noticing it was slightly heavier than a normal deck, and pulled the cards out.
Each card was solid black with silvery designs designating the different cards. Quickly shifting through them he realized there was an entire deck in his hands. Taking one card in his hands, he drew the edge across the padding of the chair he sat in. John was shocked as he watched the padding split apart easier than a hot knife through butter.
Suddenly hyper-aware of how sharp these cards were he asked, “Hey Sylmora, are you sure these gloves will protect my hands?”
He chuckled at the sarcastic tone she had but did as she said anyway. He carefully drew the edge of the same card across one of his fingers bracing himself for the sting of pain. To his surprise he felt nothing except the same pressure he would expect to feel from a normal card.
He chuckled softly at the absurdness of his new situation. He killed an alien, saved a young girl, and now had a deck of cards he planned on using as a weapon. “Oh, my life just got weird.”
Sylmora chuckled, the breathy sound sending shivers down his spine,
John shook his head as he stood up and faced a nearby cork board. “A good idea, if a little crass in its delivery.”
The soft sounds of cards thunking into the cork board were all that accompanied him for the next hour.